When creating content you should always serve the meat first and then let the viewer gnaw on the bones after, if they so desire.

My thinking when it comes to this stuff is to put the meat above the fold and then allow the detail to be revealed to those who wish to scroll. This rewards the hit and run viewer who simply wants the meat and then to share it, and the viewer who likes to spend more time and dig down to rich detail and then share.

When you have made the massive effort of tempting the ravenous viewer to your page, to feast on your tasty content, don’t make them work for it.

Feed them Seymore

Don’t make them have to think. Viewers when asked may like to pretend they like classics like Dostoyevsky, but John Grisham always sells more. Don’t make them have to scroll further to get to the meat because even if the meat is the tastiest in the world, the viewer will probably give up before they get to the end..

The importance of having the meat above the fold is huge, as most people will even give great stuff a cursory glance. Content has to impact fast and smash it in the viewers face. The detail, the complexity and the “take the viewer on a journey”, comes after that and rewards those who stick around and want a deeper narrative.

It is tricky because when we create something we have been taught to take the viewer on a journey, this thinking developed for magazines and books, when the viewer had little distraction or need to quickly move on, as they had bought the book/magazine and intend to read as much as possible.

Same doesn’t apply to web content.

I see the modern web browser as a starving Velociraptor. They are not too concerned with the complex flavours or that hint of truffle oil.

They want meat and they want it now.

My solution is to radically change your layout so that the meat is always served first, and then as the blood drips from the Velociraptor’s teeth, let them gnaw on the bones of the detail.

The aim is to create art that satisfies the hunger on viewing and then allows for further investigation and confirmation that the content is worthy of a social signal or a link.

This thinking underlies my philosophy when I consult with clients on content that gets shared.

Read a very interesting article over at Marketingweek.co.uk written by Mark Ritson, about fickle teens, and came across a great quote

Do you really imagine that Facebook will remain the de-facto social media standard by the time today’s 13-year-olds exit the teenage segment in 2020? Do you really believe Facebook is somehow immune from the same disease that infected MySpace?

The writer goes on to say.

The data supporting a teen defection from Facebook remains qualitative at this stage. I am certainly in no position to suggest that Facebook is already losing teen users or that they are already spending less time on the site. But the key lesson from Abercrombie is that while Facebook’s teen downfall may not yet be upon us, it is nonetheless inevitable and will be expeditious once it begins.

There is a saying in share trading, “trying to buy at the bottom of the market is like trying to catching a falling knife”.

Likewise basing your business decisions on if and when a particular social media system is no longer worth the ROI is not very efficient and you could easily get stabbed in the back of the hand by the falling knife.

Google trends reporting for searches based on in quotes, “Facebook is Dead”.

We cannot predict when the fall from grace will happen, but we can design our online marketing strategy to be nimble, fast and adaptable. If you are told, “you need to get ready for change.”

You are listening to the wrong people.

Change has to be in your DNA.

When things move online they move fast, you need to be adaptable. If you think, “I’ve marketed on Facebook, it’s been good to me so I will always market on FB.” You will be dead.

Adaptability should be hard wired into your online marketing plan.

It should seep into your content marketing strategy to take advantage of techniques like Newsjacking, where you need to act swift and decisively.

I doubt there is anyone reading this that is not already at least aware of the hit US TV series, Breaking Bad. You probably already know that the last 8 episodes ever are about to be broadcast on August 11th. Even the BBC are newsjacking a show that is not on their network.

But what has this got to do with seo?

Well, we publish content around what people are talking about to get their attention and engage them.

Although I use the term “seo” in its broadest terms.

What I am really talking about is publishing and networking or even content marketing. The debate about “seo” is currently a topic in the industry. http://insocialwetrust.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/were-missing-the-point/ which we can comfortably leave to others a the moment.

Lets explore the reason of whether you should newsjack Breaking Bad.

The problem
You have a website where you need to increase the rankings in Google for specific webterms.

The Solution
Publish content on your website about the Breaking Bad show and promote

How do we implement the solution?

The key is in the word “publish”, get rid for a moment of all those fancy pants marketing terms and stick with the basic concept that you are going to publish something and other people are going to experience it and react to it.

It is vital you keep the approach to the creation process as simple as possible and deal with the fundamentals.

Implementation should not be looked at as a one off thing. You need to build a publishing machine, because the competition for attention online has become such that you need to have the most efficient process possible.

It is no longer about producing that one great piece of content, it’s about publishing a continuous stream of great content that gives a good return on investment.

Therefore any solution that is implemented should be part of a wider process, You implement the solution by first building a process to that can efficiently solve this and any future publishing problems.

This raises the issue of content management. Having run a number of large budget operations I know that you have to organise your infrastructure similar to that of a tabloid newspaper. You then have to optimise every link in the chain, trim the fat and make sure the right people are doing the right thing.

But the process is the same, whether you are an in-house seo with a staff of 100 or a piratical, death dealing, do or die affiliate marketer who builds his website whilst downloading Breaking Bad on Piratebay.

Agencies too are no different, it does not matter that you have multiple clients. The solution is always going to be the same, the process is the same for any client but produces a different output.

It’s actually very simple

Establish your ability and resources

Develop a realistic objective

Create and publish the content

Promote the content

Use content to further build network and resources

One person can and often does do this, but larger websites have to delegate specific actions to specific people who have a certain skill set. This can be done both in-house and outsourced. I know of many one man bands who outsource everything and basically run a large agency in the cloud.

The problem suddenly becomes one of management and quality control, this can be alleviated with giving well defined tasks that are simple enough to understand and to track.

The bad news is, this is now the default setting. You have to have a publishing machine behind you to compete on a level that is going to make you a decent living if going solo.

And larger organisations need to build the publishing machine at the core of their marketing operations.

Newsjacking is one component of a content marketing strategy, a strategy that must be underpinned by a road map that has been thought out and designed by someone familiar with such things.

I’ve put together several Content Marketing, Road Maps for clients, they are not cheap and require a huge blob of time thrown at them. But it’s amazing the results a publishing machine can get when it is heading in the right direction, knows its destination and knows when it has arrived.

In future posts I will be talking about how to build your publishing machine and how to create a content marketing roadmap.

Fears have been raised that Google Maps may be removing Sydney Harbour Bridge from Google because it is now cleaned by grit blasting Robots.

BBC News website is reporting that robots developed at the University of Technology, Sydney are now operating on the bridge, applying high-pressure grit blastingcleaners and following a 3D map of the bridge area.

As we know that Google takes a firm line on webmasters who employ robots to perform black hat techniques such as spam website creation and machine written text and we fear that Google will remove the Sydney Harbour Bridge from their newly refreshed Google Maps.

To keep the Google search index fresh Google often removes websites from their search index without warning because of robot action.

We beg the Google spam team not to remove the Sydney Harbour Bridge from Google Maps because of this robot action. These are good robots not the bad robots that spam the Internet.

This is a list of 50 that we think deserve to be noted for their design, or certain aspects of them.

A visual list of infographic inspiration awaits…

The Visual Article

The Visual Article infographic is all about attracting the viewer immediately with the title and offering something more than just a written article. The content itself must be varied, interesting and plentiful so that readers do not come away disappointed.

The Flow Chart

Flow charts are successful for answering questions and when engaging the right audience do well on social media. The design of a flowchart prefers simple over cluttered and to make it worthwhile, there needs to be plenty of options so the viewer doesn’t feel forced into an overly narrow category. Tongue-in-cheek is common and a sense of humour is definitely a bonus!

Useful Bait

The useful bait does what it says and provides a useful resource to the viewer. Usability should be the priority with a straightforward design and content which is strictly relevant to the topic. When designing infographics like these it’s best to imagine them being printed out.

Number Porn

Impressive numbers coupled with an engaging design make the ‘Number Porn’ infographic work. Numerical infographics boil down to a lot of numbers with little visualisation to aid comprehension. They are straightforward to produce but may lack a bit of imagination.

The Timeline

The timeline shows a journey to the viewer and it must be important to them to be successful. Each element of a timeline infographic should be visualised, so it’s easy to see the progression and is visually stimulating.

The Versus Infographic

Matching content to audience is crucial here. You need to consider what the audience care about and focus on two characters or concepts. A common feature of these infographics compares both differences and similarities. A little humour and stylised design are a must if they are to succeed.

The Photo Infographic

Arguably the hardest to produce, these infographics need quality photographs and a well thought out design to come off as professional looking. When done right though, these infographics are visually arresting and provide a unique way to display information.